


Friends Don't Help Friends Murder People

by specialrhino



Category: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 20:58:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17050454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/specialrhino/pseuds/specialrhino
Summary: Murderbot has a new hanger-on. It wouldn't really be classified as a friend.





	Friends Don't Help Friends Murder People

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merit/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, Merit! :)

I did a lot of babysitting, for a mass murdering machine.

To be fair, this is what I was designed for, preventing humans from (accidentally) killing themselves or one another. But you'd think I'd do something else when I was off the clock. You'd be wrong.

Dr. Mensah's small human wanted to go to a special viewing of an episode of a serial, which would be followed by several panels for different serials on that network. The actors were going to be there, which is why I didn't want to be. The main draw of television for me was that it was unrealistic and I didn't have to interact with humans. Why the hell would I go somewhere to be surrounded by people who were crushed together, sweating and emoting? Dr. Mensah was laboring under the impression it would please me to attend.

Why the hell would anyone want to know the real humans under the serial characters that were much better?

Also it was on the planet, and planets were stressful. If I got Dr. Mensah's small human eaten or maimed by local fauna I'd have to run away to the other side of the galaxy. Again.

At the viewing, I subtly maneuvered us so we would get very poor seats. So when the asteroid landed with a world-rumbling impact that went unremarked on by the locals, Dr. Mensah's human was already restless and clearly wanted to investigate. I glanced from the small human's hopeful face to the schedule flashing in my vision. _The Chronicles of Persei V_ was next, a serial I actually liked and didn't want ruined by reality, so I acquiesced to the small human's plea.

The asteroid site was twenty minutes away by shuttle, and a ten minute trudge from there. It looked like a rock that was sitting on dented ground that was also made up of rocks. It was thrilling.

After half an hour of clambering over terrain and taking souvenir pictures, Dr. Mensah's small human was satisfied that the asteroid was indistinguishable from all of the other rocks in the valley.

I was satisfied it was late enough in the day that we were not going back to the convention.

There was a prickling at the back of my neck. My human subroutine took over and rubbed at the goosebumps there with the hand that wasn't at the weapon at my hip. An image formed in my mind, of a person from behind. They were wearing the same clothing I had on. Wait, that was me.

I turned around, but there was nothing there. Weird. Dr. Mensah's human gave a yelp and almost toppled off a boulder and, in ensuring its safety, the incident slipped my mind.

 

 

Two hours later, I stared down at the security personnel's helmet wistfully. The ferry to the station was a crowded mass of humans with no nooks to hide out in. This was great from a security perspective, but the stress of maintaining hyper-vigilance on the planet was taking its toll on me. I just wanted to stand in a corner, watch media and not have to monitor my facial expressions.

A thought slithered into my mind, an image of me, slaughtering everyone in the shuttle, and then doing just that.

I paused. Just because I'm a mass-murderer, doesn't mean I actually want to murder people. Well, not usually. And while I had the anxiety and depression that came with most SecUnits, intrusive thoughts were not part of that norm. That thought had not been my own. Had it?

Did something follow me from the planet? The hairs ART had programmed to grow on my organic parts started to rise.

I considered the possibilities. The most likely was a psychic unknown species. Wonderful. (That was sarcasm, if you couldn't tell.) As far as I knew, that should be impossible, something organic with no augments patching through to my feed, but then I wasn't very educated, so. Who knew. Maybe psychic fauna were in all of the serials I didn't watch.

Humans didn't like unregistered species on settled planets. Given our recent history with aliens, I could see why.

I reviewed the camera footage on the shuttle, and from the beginning of the flight, none of the humans seemed to notice anything amiss, fidgeting and respirating at their normal rates. The security cameras, which had no blind spots, did not show anything non-humanoid enter the shuttle. Maybe I really could add intrusive thoughts and OCD to my fun list of idiosyncrasies. Thanks, company, the extra intelligence was worth it. Not.

It took the remainder of the ferry ride, but I decided my potential OCD wasn't worth dwelling on. Halfway through an episode of _The Last Dynasty of Cloud Palace_ it occured to me that maybe I had had thoughts like that before, but then deleted them. It was troubling, but there wasn't anything I could do about it.

For the first time in a while, I wished ART were there to say something sarcastic and reframe everything. Or to be annoying enough to distract me. I cursed my improved processing speed. Back when I was still serving my SecUnit contract, I wouldn't have the processing power to pay attention to a show, monitor computer screens and be wholly entrenched in a crisis at the same time. Hell, I wouldn't have even tried to process my crisis at all.

 

 

I had planned to finish _The Last Dynasty of Cloud Palace_ when I got back home but when I stepped in the door, all I wanted was to go into stasis. Thinking in circles was exhausting, who knew?

The first thing I bought for my home when I had enough on my currency card was a huge, ostentatious bed that came with a small mountain of pillows. Humans in ads and people in serials - whether their character could realistically afford them or not - always seemed to have them. Except who the fuck needed that many pillows? Could anyone actually manage to sleep with them all over the bed?

So walking from the doorway of my bedroom to my (soft to the point of discomfort) bed was an exercise in stepping over all of the pillows I'd shoved to the floor. I faceplanted onto the mattress - thankfully I didn't require very much air - and shut off.

The next thing I was aware of was an image of someone wearing my clothes, again. They were lying, prone, on my bed.

I recognized myself much faster this time and jolted up.

There was a purple, cat-shaped thing with itty bitty horns sitting on the edge of my bed. I experienced a sensation of wanting to consume and/or possess it with my eyes.

I saved several dozen screencaps of it into permanent storage. I almost, even, wanted to touch it. I got an image of me, petting it. Ha, nice try, psychic cat. I didn't _actually_ want to touch it.

It cooed. I had only been in stasis for four hours and was only functioning at 50% capacity. In other words, it was too early for this. I dropped into stasis again.

The next morning I woke up, and it was curled up on me, rumbling. What the hell, Murderbot. Why did you let it stay?

It opened one eye and yawned at me. I gave in and scritched its head. And took a screenshot.

 

 

Babysitting clients on the clock wasn't too bad. For one, I got a currency card out of it. For two, I didn't have to interact with any people if I didn't want to. At the moment, I was protecting my client from the solitude of my cabin, a serial up on the viewing screen while I monitored the ship's security cameras. Thankfully there were also cameras in the individual cabins, as well. I only had to worry if my client was stupid enough to leave a populated area (yes, a human not making the stupid decision was a reach, I know). The ship had given me permission to control its drones if something big came up.

The cat had somehow followed me on board, but thankfully went mostly unnoticed by the passengers. I didn't see it shed, but I did see the janitor give me a few dirty looks, so its purple hairs must have been getting places I didn't care to notice. My organic parts didn't react to common allergies like dander and dust, so I rarely payed attention to minor hygienic details.

Presently, the target, a representative from a rival corporation of my client and the most likely originator of the threats, was watching the serial _Days in Station 9_. It was the one I'd gotten fifteen minutes into before the SecUnit was revealed to be a. also a pleasure bot and b. secretly in love with the protagonist's sister. If I sound like I'm judging, it's because I am.

My human-like subroutine prompted me to sigh. Maybe I should just get up now, and go to the target's compartment. The ship would let me in easily. I could smother him with one of the stupidly fringe-y in-flight pillows. It would be over in less than a minute, and then I could return to my cabin, finish the cruise and go home and cuddle the cat.

Wait. When had I stood up?

I glared down at the cat. "That's rude. Just because I'm putting up with you, doesn't mean you can do that."

It curled around my ankles and rumbled pleasantly. It was so soft. I could feel the happy hormones going through my organic parts' endocrine system.

"No." I sat down. It jumped up next to me on the bed, still rumbling.

Maybe I could just open the door for the cat, and then it could take care of everything for me. That would be so easy.

"No. No killing."

It hopped off the armchair. I dove for it, hands fisting in its rapidly puffing fur. Its body started getting hotter and I turned off the pain sensors in my hands.

The door opened and the thing went limp and started rumbling again.

"Oh how cute, you brought your cat," the client said in syrupy tones, sounding magnitudes less awkward than she had in any of our interactions to date. I looked through the cameras in the room and noticed she wasn't even looking at me, all of her attention on the cat. Interesting.

"Yes." I said after a pause that was significant to me, but not to the human. "This is my cat." Another pause. "I brought it." Humans found it soothing when other humans parroted information back at them. Maybe this one would be satisfied and go away.

Miraculously, after a few pats on the cat's head, she did. The cat didn't spontaneously murder her, which was also nice.

 

 

The cruise's first shore stop came a few cycles after that, which meant I had to leave my cabin. Planetfall meant no surveillance cameras, which meant I had to tail the client on foot into the crowds of all the other tourists.

After some deliberation, I decided to bring the cat. (It probably would have come regardless.) Two-thirds of the humans I passed looked at the cat with interest and didn't spare a glance for me. Why hadn't I found a pet earlier?

It turned out it wasn't the other passenger that wanted my client out of the way, but the threat turned out to be the janitor. I was clued into this on our second shore leave when ter held a projectile weapon to my chest, right where my memory storage was located.

It figures, I thought my last thought was going to be, that I'm murdered by an unaugmented organic life form with such poor aim they need to shoot point blank to make their target.

That was before ter dissolved into red mist, the weapon falling to the floor with a _clack._

I spent the next hour cleaning the blood from my clothing sufficiently until I could leave the port to buy new ones. The cat wound around my legs the whole time, rumbling obnoxiously loudly, projecting images into my head of going back into the cabin and watching the next episode of _The Last Dynasty of Cloud Palace._

I looked down at it. "You are not allowed on my next assignment."

It had the gall to blink at me.

"I know an asshole you'd get along with really well. I'm never going to introduce you."


End file.
